


Climb On!

by adhdenki (breemeup)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, This really got away from me, eren has long hair because long haired eren is everything, rock climbing au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8992288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breemeup/pseuds/adhdenki
Summary: When Jean moves to Pasadena from New York, he decides to take up his old hobby of indoor rock climbing again. He does his best to avoid talking to anyone, but finds himself pulled into the orbit of Marco Bodt, a friendly fellow climber.Reply to my Jeanmarco Secret Santa's prompt: "rock climbers are so friendly! or so jean found out when he moved from east coast to west and continued his hobby of indoor rock climbing. there's a lovely boy that's often laughing and climbing and encouraging other climbers and spotting or belaying them when asked, and every time he sees jean climbing (alone of course, usually with his earbuds in so people don't talk to him) he smiles and waves, even though he doesn't know him!???"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Secretjeanmarco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretjeanmarco/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Secretjeanmarco! I'm your secret santa! I hope you enjoy your gift! <3
> 
> Also, I know nothing about indoor rock climbing so I apologize if I mess up some of the terminology.
> 
> My tumblr is hansolosmother.

The first time I ever  _ really _ climbed something, I was three. My parents had taken me to Central Park, probably in the hopes of getting me to expend some of my little-kid energy or something. I, so the story goes, had snuck away from them when they were setting up a picnic, and by the time they’d noticed I was gone, I was nowhere in sight. They searched for me frantically, scouring the park, asking any stranger they could pin down if they had seen me. Finally, when my mother was on the verge of a breakdown and my father was on the verge of calling the cops, they found me: happy, safe, and standing on top of Rat Rock, a triumphant toddler smile plastered all over my face.

I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but one thing I do remember vividly is this: what I’d felt standing at the foot of a rock that couldn’t have been taller than five feet, but to three year old me, may as well have been a mountain. It was exhilaration, it was an adrenaline rush, it was the absolute, gripping certainty that I was put on this earth to conquer that specific rock. Maybe there’s something inside of us, some innate drive, a small, whispering voice that comes out whenever we’re around a big fucking rock that says, “Hey, man, you gotta climb that shit”, and maybe I answered that call that day. 

I fell in love with climbing then, as a bouncy, chubby three year old, and I’ve loved it ever since.

I  _ still _ fucking love climbing.

At least that’s what I tell myself as I reach for the handhold directly above me, trying to regulate my breathing. It’s been months since I’ve come to a climbing gym, so even this V9 level boulder problem is proving to be a bit of a struggle for my sorry, out-of-shape ass. 

I finally reach the top and close my eyes, leaning my forehead against the wall. God, I really need to get back into shape. My heart beats harder than it has in a while, and my muscles burn in that weirdly pleasant way they do after a really good workout or after really good sex. I take one more deep breath before heading back down the wall, almost collapsing once I reach the bottom, but in spite of it all, I break out into a grin. My muscles may be crying out and I may be sweating like a pig, but  _ damn _ it feels good to be climbing again.

I haven’t really spoken to anyone since I moved out to Pasadena from New York for grad school, and school hasn’t started yet, so I’d decided to take up climbing again to try and exorcise the restlessness out of me, and it seems to be working, at least so far. Anything to take my mind off the approaching semester and the stress it’s sure to bring me. 

 

I make my way over to the locker room, a towel around my neck, when I spot some guy climbing one of the tougher problems in the gym. He’s near the top, his eyebrows creased in concentration and his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth ever so slightly. I can’t help but smile a bit at his focus; it’s definitely a face I’ve made at some point and there’s something endearing about the familiarity of the gesture. 

It’s after I’ve showered and I’m heading towards the gym’s exit that I spot the guy again. He’s leaning against the wall, laughing raucously at something his friend, a shorter, dark-skinned man, had said. Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that the face that had previously been so full of focus is dusted with tiny freckles. I catch myself staring, the temptation to stand there and try to count them all dancing across my mind, and he must catch me staring too, because he looks up and gives me a grin that can only be described as “inviting”. Well, that’s not an invitation I’m going to accept, because I’ve got places to be and shit to do, and by places to be I mean my apartment and by shit to do I mean binging Netflix until I fall asleep on my couch. The guy waves at me eagerly and for a moment I’m tempted to let myself get sucked into their conversation, but instead, I settle for a brief nod as I walk out the door.

 

I hit the gym a few more times that week, and it’s almost like I can physically feel myself getting back in shape. The handful of bouldering problems are starting to get stale, so after I finish climbing the toughest of them, I look up at a problem on the other side of the gym. It’s got to be at least a 5.9 problem, and I’m itching for a challenge after like a week of just bouldering, but a tall problem like that would require a belayer, and I’m not about to ask someone for help. I’m absolutely certain that anyone I were to ask would say yes, climbers are a notoriously friendly group after all, but that would require actually  _ talking _ to someone and that seems more daunting than any rock wall could possibly be. 

I’m about to try the familiar boulder problem one more time, when I catch a glimpse of the freckled guy I’d noticed a few days earlier standing a few feet away. He waves over at me, clearly trying to get my attention.  

“What’s up?” I pull one of my earbuds out, turning towards him.

“You need a belayer?” the guy smiles over at me affably, rubbing the back of his neck. His brown hair is tousled beyond belief and he’s glistening with sweat, but again, the word “endearing” comes to mind when I look at him and his collection of freckles.

“Why would I-”.

“Well, I noticed you looking at that problem,” the guy nods his head towards where I’d been looking a few moments ago, “So I figured you might want a belayer so you could try it out!”

“Nah, I think I’ll stick to bouldering,” I start to put the earbud back in, but I realize that the man’s face falls slightly, like he’d actually been excited at the prospect of belaying for me, and I feel kinda bad, “But thanks,” I manage a small half smile. 

The man brightens and gives me a cheesy double thumbs up that has me suppressing an eye roll before I turn back to the problem I’d been about to tackle. I feel a twinge of regret at the fact that my misanthropy has gotten the better of me again, but it can’t be helped. I’ve never been particularly good at making friends, and I’m not anywhere near naive enough to think that moving to LA would make me any better at it. I shake off any vestiges of loneliness that may be creeping up on me and reach up for the first handhold. Throwing myself into climbing has always been a pretty good anaesthetic for any negative feelings that might take root in me, so I do just that. 

 

I work late the next few days, so I don’t go back to the gym until the next Saturday afternoon. When I do, I find myself subconsciously looking out for the freckled man from before and I can’t help the tiny twinge of disappointment that hits me when I don’t spot him anywhere. Whatever, I came here to climb, not to make friends. The afternoon slips into evening as I fully exhaust almost every boulder problem, reveling in my ability to tackle them all without collapsing in on myself. 

I’m climbing up the last one as I glance over and notice someone climbing the route next to me, his dark brown hair pulled up in a short ponytail, whisps of it escaping to frame his angular face. The man looks over at me and we make eye contact. He raises an eyebrow in response, his green eyes playful, and shoots me a grin.

“Race me?” he asks before continuing up the wall at a nearly inhuman speed. 

Well. There is no way in  _ hell _ that I’m letting some random asshole beat me, so I put my ass in gear and make my way up the wall, instinctively reaching out for the next hold. I’ve climbed this problem so many fucking times, I could do it with my eyes closed, so I catch up to the guy pretty quickly. He looks at me out the corner of his eye and speeds up, reaching the top a hair before I do.

“First one down the wall wins!” He says breathily, heading back down the wall. 

_ Okay. Okay. I got this. _

I hit the top and start my descent, catching up to him again about halfway down. We make eye contact once more and I can’t help the triumphant grin that makes its way across my face. We both pause for a beat before he flat out  _ winks _ at me, pushing back against the wall and jumping down to the ground. 

“What the fuck?” I look down and the guy looks up at me in triumph. It’s not an especially high drop, but it’s high enough to where he was risking twisting his ankle or worse. What the fuck kind of idiot risks that just to show up some stranger at a gym?

Eren Jaeger, it turns out, is the kind of idiot who risks that just to show up some stranger at a gym. At least, that’s what he introduces himself as once I (carefully, like a normal human being) climb down to the ground. 

“Jean Kirschtein,” I shake his hand begrudgingly, my pride just a bit hurt at my (clearly unjust) defeat. 

“Nice to-” Eren starts.

“Eren! What on Earth were you thinking?” a small blond makes his way over to us, his face red in indignation.

“What do you mean?” Eren asks, his voice innocent. 

“You could have hurt yourself! Again!” The blond stands in front of Eren, his hands on his hips, “And then you would have spent the whole week crying and feeling sorry for yourself and who would have to nurse your sorry ass back to health? That’s right, me, your boyfriend”. He narrows his eyes before turning to me, his face snapping into a friendly smile while Eren looks at the ground, thoroughly abashed, “I’m Armin, this one’s babysitter, apparently”.

“Jean,” I shake Armin’s hand. 

“I’m sorry he roped you into one of his races and then  _ cheated, _ ” Armin nudges Eren with his elbow.

“Okay, okay,” Eren laughs, releasing his hair from his ponytail “That was shitty of me,” he looks up at me, “What do you say to a rematch? A real one?” He gestures at the problem I’d been looking at a few days before.

“I-I don’t have a belayer,” I offer up as an excuse. I don’t know if I’m really in the mood to spend any more time with this joker, and besides, I think I’ve gotten enough climbing in for the day. 

“Well, our friend Marco’s on his way,” Armin volunteers, “I’m sure he’d be more than willing to do it”. 

“Yeah!” Eren bounces on his toes as he ties his hair back up, “Marco never says no to helping someone out! What do you say?” he gives me a hopeful smile.

“Fine,” I find myself saying with a shrug, in spite of myself.

“Ooh, Marco’s here!” Armin points at the entrance of the gym and I turn to look. The freckled man from before walks through the doors, greeting the front staff with a friendly smile. 

“Marco!” Eren waves his arms frantically, as if trying to flag down a plane. Marco waves back with a chuckle, walking over to us. My heart does a small flip, probably due to the anxiety that comes with meeting new people, I tell myself.

“Hey Eren!” Marco pulls Eren into a hug.  _ Of course this guy’s a hugger _ .

“Marco!” Eren breaks the hug and directs Marco’s attention towards me, “This is Jean, he needs a belayer so I can kick his ass!” Marco laughs at this and I can’t help but notice that he tends to do the whole laughing thing a lot.

“Hey, Jean,” Marco smiles at me and sticks out his hand, “Change your mind about sticking to bouldering?” 

“I guess,” I slip my hand into his bigger one and shake it, trying my best not to let my thoughts linger on how rough and calloused it feels.

“That’s great!” He takes his hand back and sticks it in his pocket, “Do you have much experience climbing, or?”

“Yeah,” I nod, “Been climbing for as long as I can remember”.

“Perfect,” he gives me that cheesy thumbs up again, “Then you know what to do”.

“Let’s do this!” Eren throws his arm around Marco’s shoulder and Armin rolls his eyes good-naturedly. 

 

I lose. Spectacularly. I could chalk it up to the fact that I haven’t done any lead climbing in a while, or to my exhaustion after climbing all day, but to be honest, it has more to do with a certain belayer and his disgustingly distracting freckles. And laugh. And smile. And banter. It’s all so disarming and engaging that I find myself not even caring about the race, investing way more of my focus into the sort-of conversation we’re carrying on as I climb. We don’t really have a lot of time to talk during the race itself, but I still manage to learn a lot about Marco. I learn that he gets a really sly look on his face when he’s about to tell a corny joke. I learn that he is an amazing, attentive belayer. I learn that he closes his eyes tight when he throws his head back in laughter. And most of all, I learn that I’m in  _ fucking deep _ . It’s been an age and a half since I’ve developed anything nearing a crush on someone, but I know a crush when I see one, and this is an embarrassing, blush inducing, butterflies in my stomach level  _ crush.  _

When I finish the climb and unclip my carabiner, Eren throws his arms up in victory.

“Suck it, Kirschtein!” he whoops, dancing around me.

“We’ll get him next time,” Marco puts an arm around my shoulder to whisper in my ear conspiratorially, and I have to look away with a blush. 

Armin catches my eye and smiles at me knowingly before turning towards Eren.

“Don’t be a sore winner, Eren”. 

“You’d better believe I’m gonna be a sore winner!” Eren responds, “In fact, I think Jean here owes us all some drinks!”

“Excuse me?” I raise an eyebrow at Eren.

“Loser always pays for drinks!” Eren crosses his arms.

“Um, that wasn’t in the rules when I agreed to do this,” I mimic his pose. 

“It was  _ implied, _ ”

“If you seriously think-”

“I’ll pay,” Marco cuts in, “After all, I was your belayer, so I’m sure I deserve at least part of the blame for your loss”.

“Marco-” I start, but Eren interrupts.

“So it’s settled! Marco pays for drinks! Meet us at Trost!” He turns on his heel and heads towards the locker room, “Let’s go, Armin!”. Armin shoots us an apologetic glance before following behind Eren. 

“You really don’t have to pay,” I tell Marco once we’re alone, “It’s 100% on me that I lost”. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Marco waves his hand dismissively, “It wouldn’t be fair of me to let some poor, unsuspecting soul get sucked into paying for Eren’s drinks. He’s kind of like this tornado that just picks up people in his wake and brings them along for the ride”.

“That’s… a pretty good description of him, I think,” we settle into an awkward silence that I find myself dying to break, but I’m terrified that whatever I can come up with won’t be good enough. It’s Marco who ends up breaking the silence though. 

“You’re coming, right?” he asks.

“To get drinks with you guys?”

“Yeah,” he nods.

“I don’t know,” I huff, “I’m kind of beat. Besides, I don’t think Eren really cares if I go or not, as long as his drinks get paid for”. 

“Well,” He smiles softly, “I’d personally really like it if you came”.

“Oh,” I look down at the ground. Well  _ of course _ I’m going now.

Marco gives me directions to Trost, a bar down the street that’s popular with climbers, and we agree to meet there after I take a quick shower.

 

When I pull up to the bar, I can see Eren, Armin, and Marco through the window, seated at a back table. Marco spots me first and waves enthusiastically. I walk over to where they’re sitting, drinks already on the table in front of them.

“What’ll it be?” Marco asks as I slide into the booth next to him and across from Armin and Eren.

“I’ll uh, I’ll take a Long Island Iced Tea, I guess,” I shrug, going with my usual. Eren snorts a laugh at this. “I’m sorry, is there a problem, Jaeger?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

“I didn’t realize you were a 20 year old sorority girl,” he retorts. 

“Hey, man, I’ve met some hardcore 20 year old sorority girls who could knock back whisky like the best of them. Besides, I’m getting a little too old for straight-up hard liquor”. I haven’t done shots since a particularly wild night my sophomore year of undergrad, and I’m not about to break that streak.

“Jean,” Eren looks at me skeptically, “you’re like what, 30?”

“25”.

“Okay,” Eren scoffs, “well Marco’s like 27 and he’s not letting that stop him”.  

I look over at Marco who downs his glass before standing up. 

“I’ll go get you your drink, Jean”.

“No!” Eren stands abruptly, clearly already a bit buzzed, “Armin and I will get the next round”.

“All right,” Marco shrugs and sits back down as Eren drags Armin up to the bar. 

“So,” I start, determined not to let us lapse back into silence again.

“So,” Marco leans towards me, a smile playing across his lips, his chin cupped in his hand, “Tell me about yourself”.

“About myself?” Great, my least favorite subject.

“Yeah,” his smile widens, “Who is Jean Kirschtein?” 

Well. That’s a question.

“Um, well, I’m not a very exciting person,” I shrug.

“Oh?” Marco leans in closer, “I don’t see it,” I find that hard to believe, “Come on!” he nudges me, “tell me something, anything!”

“Well you know. I’m 25. But you already knew that. I love climbing. But you knew that too”.

“So tell me something I don’t know”. 

“Okay,” I take a deep breath, “I moved here from New York for grad school; I’m getting my master’s at Cal Tech in geology”.

“Geology?” Marco raises an eyebrow, “that… rocks”. I groan and press my forehead down on the table, any uneasiness I may have felt dissipating. There’s something about Marco that puts me at ease, that draws me out in a way that no one else has been able to do. It’s a nice change from feeling on edge all the time, the way I usually do around new people.

“Marco,” I mumble, bringing my head back up, “That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard”.

Marco throws his head back and laughs.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist,” he says, once he’s calmed down enough to be comprehensible, “So why geology?”

“Well, I’ve always liked climbing rocks, so I figured, why not get to know them more intimately?”

“Really?” Marco barks out a surprised laugh.

“Nah,” I chuckle, “I actually really want to get into glacial geology, with like an emphasis on climate change”. 

“That’s really admirable, Jean,” Marco says thoughtfully, “Much  _ cooler  _ than what I studied”.

“What did you stu- wait,” I catch what he’d just said, “Did you just-,” Marco loses his shit again, “Oh my god, you’re seriously the worst,” he wipes a tear from his eye, “What kind of loser laughs at his own joke?”

“The cute kind,” Marco winks.

“Can’t argue with that,” I mumble, looking down at the table. 

“O-oh?” I look over at Marco, whose face is approaching an alarming shade of red.

“Well y-”

“We’re back, bitches!” Eren slams a tray of drinks on the table, a long-suffering looking Armin trailing behind him.

“Eren,” Armin puts a hand on his shoulder, “Maybe you should slow down”. 

“ _ Never _ ,” Eren picks up a shot of vodka and raises it in the air, “Tonight, I celebrate the taste of sweet, sweet victory,” he downs the shot as Armin rolls his eyes.

“Eren,” Marco looks down at the tray, “Where’s Jean’s drink?”

Eren sits down and grins, “Jeanny boy is gonna be taking shots like the rest of us!”

“I tried to talk him out of it,” Armin sighs.

“Here,” Eren holds a shot out to me, “Take it. Unless you don’t think you can keep up with me?” He raises an eyebrow. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he brings out my competitive side, so I take the glass, look him straight in the eye, and down the whole thing.  _ Goddamn that burns. _

Eren cheers, “Your turn, Marco!”

“I think I’d better not,” Marco smiles, “Somebody has to drive your drunk asses home”. 

“Marco,” Eren says solemnly, “Your sacrifice will not be in vain,” he downs another shot so I follow suit.

It’s been a while since I’ve drank anything more than a glass of cheap wine with dinner, so I’m already starting to feel the effects of the alcohol when Eren leaves to get another round of drinks.   

“You doing okay?” Marco asks.

I nod.

“You don’t actually have to keep up with him, you know,” Marco says sympathetically, “Eren’s pretty notorious for his alcohol tolerance”. I consider this for a bit, tempted to agree with him, but too into the idea of drinking Eren under a table to give in, “And like maybe you and I can go somewhere else? You’re new to the area, so maybe I could show you around?”  _ Well _ . That changes everything. 

“Y-yeah,” I nod, a little to eagerly, “that sounds good”. 

“Perfect,” Marco smiles, “I’d better go close my tab before Eren drinks me into poverty”.

We stand up, find Eren and Armin, and make our goodbyes. At least, we try to; Eren’s too hyped up about yet another victory against me to let us get a word in edgewise.

Once outside, the chilly night (or at least chilly for Southern California) air starts to sober me up.

“So where to?”  

“Well what have you seen around here so far?” He asks as we head towards his car.

“Marco,” I say bluntly, “I barely leave my apartment, I don’t know anything that’s around here yet”.

“Except the gym”.

“Except the gym”.

“You haven’t even visited your future campus yet?” Marco looks over at me as we reach his car. 

“Nah,” I open the passenger side door and get in.

“Why not?”

“Oh, you know,”  _ Going there would make the fact that I’m going to be in a very difficult, very prestigious grad school  _ real _ , and then I’d have to confront my anxieties and crippling fear of failure. No big deal, _ “I’ve just been very busy watching all of Arrested Development over and over again”.

“Right, wouldn’t want anything to interfere with that,” Marco gets in and starts the car, “Well now’s as good a time as any to check it out, don’t you think? It’s a really pretty campus, and it’s late so it should be empty”. My heart does a flip, but whether it’s over my school anxiety or the implication that Marco and I will be alone together in the dark, I’m not sure.

“S-sure,” I shrug, trying to seem nonchalant. 

“Sweet,” Marco grins at me and my anxiety dies down a little.

 

Marco and I stand at the edge of the Caltech campus, my heart beating wildly. 

“So,” Marco walks ahead of me, towards the entrance, “there’s not too much to see when everything’s closed, but there are some nice gardens and a little stream with turtles, and-” Marco cuts himself off when he realizes that I haven’t kept up with him, “Jean?” he looks back at me, “are you doing okay?” 

“Um,” I take a deep breath, “Yeah”. I will myself to take a step forward, to force myself to get over this, but I can’t, I just can’t.

“Jean,” Marco walks back over to me, “It’s okay, we can go somewhere else if you-”   
“No,” I shake my head, “I should be able to do this”.

“Jean,” Marco slips his hand into mine, and I’m so anxious, I can’t even be excited about how close we are, “talk to me, what’s wrong?”

“It’s just,” I look up at the sky, blinking back tears, “For my undergrad, I went to this really small private school that was down the street from my parents’ house. I knew a lot of the people in my program and I did really well and school was so fucking easy. You know, big fish, small pond”.

“Right,” Marco nods encouragingly.

“And now, it’s like I’m going to a really prestigious school, and it’s grad school, which is supposed to be really hard, and I won’t know anyone here, and it’s just- everyone back home has all these really high expectations for me, and what if I don’t meet them? What if I fail and have to drop out? What if I never get anywhere with my life, you know?” I take a deep breath, exhaling shakily. I don’t dare look at Marco, he probably thinks I’m ridiculous. What kind of 25 year old has this kind of break down? 

“When I was 7 years old,” Marco starts, “One of my paintings sold for 50,000 dollars”.

“What?” my shock overcomes my shame and I look up at Marco.

“Yup,” he sighs, “I was one of those child prodigies you read about in the feel-good section of the newspaper. I don’t really know why people liked my paintings so much. They were mostly just smears and splatters and drips, you know, your basic kid stuff, but apparently my color composition and sense of space was really great. Or something. But anyway people really liked them and they sold for a lot of money”.

“Wow,” I breathe out. 

“I guess,” Marco shrugs, “You know, when you grow up a kid with all these adult expectations, the world is just… heavy. I don’t think kids are meant to deal with that kind of pressure. I have no idea how I turned out as okay as I did”.

“I think you turned out more than okay,” I whisper. Marco gives a small smile at that before continuing.

“Anyway things went really great until I hit fifteen. When you’re a kid, you can get by as a genius just by doing the same thing over and over, but once you’re a teenager, people start to expect something  _ new _ , something better. And I couldn’t give it to them. So interest started to fade and nobody really cared about me anymore and I had to learn how to deal with that,” I squeeze Marco’s hand in what I hope is a comforting gesture, “But this isn’t about me, it’s about you, and what I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t matter whether or not you meet other people’s expectations. You have intrinsic value whether you succeed or not. A degree, a job, fame, none of that defines who you are”.

“I guess,” I say, unconvinced.

“Jean,” Marco turns towards me and takes my other hand, “I know that all sounds super cliche, but it’s true. Take it from someone who’s lived it. You _matter_ , Jean. You matter because you’re a person. Because you take up space in this universe and you are the culmination of millennia of explosions and cosmic mistakes. You matter because in all of human history, there has only been one you. And in the short time I’ve known you, the you you are seems pretty great”. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Marco says softly.

“Well I think you’re pretty great too,” I smile up at him. His brown eyes seem especially deep in the shadowy moonlight and I swear I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.

“Well that’s good to know,” he leans in close to me, his forehead touching mine, “Listen, you’re going to be okay, Jean. Just let life happen to you and you’ll turn out okay”.

“Okay,” I breathe.

“Okay,” Marco touches his lips with my own, lightly, gently, like he’s afraid of scaring me off. I return his kiss, I deepen it, solidify it, trying to tell him that I’m not going anywhere. And for the first time in a while, I really do feel okay. 

 

The next day, we meet Armin and Eren at the gym. Eren and I race again, and maybe it’s because he’s slightly hungover (however much he denies it), but this time, I don’t lose. Marco gives me a prize in the form of a kiss and Eren takes us all out for dinner and school might be coming up fast and maybe I’ll fail and maybe I won’t ever be who I want to be, but right now, none of that matters. What matters is the here and the now: Marco with his arm around my shoulder, shaking in laughter as Eren tells us a convoluted story, Armin smiling at him softly. What matters is Marco feeding me a fry and Eren and Armin holding hands under the table and stealing kisses. What matters is that I am, at least at this moment in time, happy. And this might sound stupid as shit, but maybe life is like a big fucking rock. You tackle it a piece at a time, doing what you can in the moment, focusing on what’s right in front of you to get to the top. Actually, that’s a pretty good analogy. Life is like a big fucking rock, and I thoroughly intend to climb that shit.


End file.
